US online physician community Sermo has expanded into Europe for the first time, opening its doors to doctors in the UK.

It's the first step in a bold set of plans to expand this year into a number of other countries in order to connect US doctors with their colleagues from around the world.

In doing so it will rub up against players such as M3's Networks in Health alliance, whose members include Doctors.net.uk, Germany's Colliquio and Egora in France.

Sermo told PMLiVE that its plan for this year was to expand into Germany, France, Spain and Italy, though exact launch dates had yet to be finalised.

The company will be hoping its ability to allow UK doctors to work with the largest online physician community in the US will give it an edge, and claimed 11% of the UK medical community signed up as members within weeks of its soft launch in March.

The community said its move creates the first channel for UK doctors to work with their US counterparts. Sermo, which also acts as a healthcare professional polling and survey company, counts a total of 1.6 million healthcare professional members in both its social network and digital research network.

At the heart of its present plans Sermo appears to be offering physicians in the UK and the US a space to explore the 'grey zone' of medical uncertain cases by providing an anonymous, physician-only environment.

In terms of what the plans mean for its clients the company noted: “As Sermo expands to the UK and soon globally, polls can be targeted at specific countries to assess opinion on issues of national importance and relevance. Opinion polls within the social network are open and offered free of charge to members of the media.”

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